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Teacher-2-Teacher

Sports education builds

life skills

PURU SINGH

ECALLING HIS EARLY YEARS IN HIS autobiog- At a time when NEP 2020 is being rolled
raphy My Life, legendary basketball player Earvin
‘Magic’ Johnson says that his senior school years out, it would be a good idea to mandate a
Rat a predominantly white school, where he was in dedicated sports class starting an hour
the basketball team, was probably the best thing that ever
happened to him. Humiliated by his team-mates even dur- before academic classes commence, or
ing practice to the extent they wouldn’t even pass the ball after school gets over
to him, Johnson says that those years taught him “how to
understand white people, how to communicate and deal
with them.” which abound in India.
This life skill could have been learned only on a bas- The most obvious beneficial spillover from any sport —
ketball court in a sea of racism that Johnson experienced and one says this consciously, any sport — is to learn to
as a student, and not from any other place. This is as true become a team player while simultaneously excelling indi-
of basketball as it is for any other sport, as lessons learnt vidually. The popular belief that only field games such as
on playing fields are indelible. This is why sports educa- hockey, football and cricket teach team spirit is erroneous.
tion needs to be an integral part of school curriculums — Sports such as tennis or golf where there’s a whole support
rather than limited to one or two 45-minute classes per team, including coach, agent and physiotherapist, enables
week — when young children can start learning life skills. players such as Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to win
Therefore, at a time when the National Education Policy Grand Slam tournaments.
(NEP) 2020 is being rolled out, it would be a good idea to onversely, even in team sports, there’s room for indi-
mandate a dedicated daily sports class, which could either Cvidual excellence. But individual glory is little solace
start an hour before the academic classes commence, or for great performers if they are on the losing side. Michael
after school gets over. Jordan, the greatest hoopster the world has ever seen whose
Moreover, sports classes in schools are usually under popularity transcended geographical boundaries, was al-
the charge of a physical education teacher who’s more aca- ready a star in the 1980s with numerous accolades, but be-
demic than an individual with experience in a sports arena. reft of championship win. That came about only when he
To derive full value from sports education only individuals teamed up with other greats like Scottie Pippen Sr, Horace
who have experience of competitive play if not internation- Grant and Phil Jackson which led to the Chicago Bulls win-
ally, at least in national games, should be selected to teach ning several championship trophies in the 1990-91 season.
sports and games. Indeed it’s advisable that schools invest Jordan aptly remarked that “If you think and achieve as a
in specialist coaches for specific sports. Just as an English team, individual accolades will take care of themselves. Tal-
teacher can’t teach algebra or trigonometry, a swimming ent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win cham-
coach can’t effectively coach a football team. pionships.” This also explains why in two back-to-back
This is to not discount the importance of academics. In Olympics of 1992 and 1996, the US dominated basketball
the US to qualify for inclusion in a school or college ath- despite the absence of stalwarts like Johnson, Jordan and
letics or sports team, students have to score a minimum Pippen. But the team included Larry Bird (1992), Shaquille
grade point average (GPA) in academics. And to maintain O’Neal and Karl Malone (1996). They played as a team for
minimum scores to retain their places in an athletics squad the country.
or field games team. Therefore, coaches work in tandem Sports also teaches humility, grace and acceptance be-
with fellow teachers in academic disciplines to ensure that cause no sportsperson can end his/her career with an all-
star athletes understand that sports and academics are not wins record. Even Balbir Singh Dosanjh, the greatest field
mutually exclusive. hockey centre-forward the game has ever produced, ended
A similar model needs to be adopted in India to ensure up without the gold medal at the 1958 Tokyo Asian Games.
students playing for school or varsity teams maintain mini- In 2006, when South Africa beat Australia with one ball
mal academic grades. Sports stars should be made aware of to spare in their fifth cricket ODI, Ricky Ponting and Her-
minimum grades required if they wish to continue playing schelle Gibbs were declared joint recipients of the Man of
on school or college teams. the Match award for chalking up brilliant centuries. How-
After winning India’s first ever gold medal for pistol ever, Ponting, an aggressive on-field player, graciously de-
shooting at the Beijing Olympics 2008, Abhinav Bindra clined the award and stepped aside in favour of Gibbs.
stressed that if teaching life-skills to sportspersons was These are the important life skills that sports teach.
mandatory as in the US, “none out of 10 athletes will actu-
ally fail.” Learning a life skill can be the difference between
earning a decent living and living in penury — examples of (Puru Singh is founder-director of the Push Sports Academy, Delhi)

34 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2023